A Belly Full Of Fire
by FruitPastilles
Summary: When people asked Hisashi what his Quirk was, he'd flash a grin and say he breathed fire. It was a small lie, easier to say than 'my human skin is too small and some bits slip out' despite the fact he never checked whether or not he had that toe joint. Izuku wasn't born Quirkless. He was born something else.
1. Chapter 1

**A Belly Full Of Fire**

When people asked Hisashi what his Quirk was, he'd flash a grin and say he breathed fire. It was a small lie, easier to say than 'my human skin is too small and some bits slip out' despite the fact he never checked whether or not he had that toe joint. Izuku wasn't born Quirkless. He was born something else.

* * *

For all Inko could remember in her life, there was no worse day than the one where the doctor had laid out the bare facts to her and her son – that Izuku, no matter how much he dreamt and hoped, he wouldn't have a Quirk, not like her or his father.

It was burned into her mind, when she took him home and he watched that video again, a look of devastation on his face when he asked if _he_ could be a hero too – and she had no answer other than the well of tears that made her eyes sting as she hugged him close, whispered useless platitudes.

But Izuku pushed past it all. He attended school with vigour, did his best to ignore the chiding and scathing remarks of other students, that called him a freak, a blight, _quirkless._

Izuku's persistence won out. He pushed his way to the top of the class past a fuming Bakugou with obstinate stubbornness alone, would tell anyone that listened that he _would_ go to Yuuei and that he _would_ be a hero. And while it was laughable to begin with, the sheer conviction in his voice soon made his bullies less prevalent, more cowed, because whenever Izuku got fired up, he gained some other sort of quality about him that made him seem…not right.

And so Izuku barrelled on.

Then a slime villain tried to suffocate his childhood best-friend and nothing was quite right again.

* * *

"What – " was all Izuku managed to squeeze out before the bulbous, gooey mass engulfed him, the sewer grate still clattering obnoxiously against the ground like a coin that hadn't stopped bouncing and spinning.

"Just be quiet, kid," the blob hissed. "It'll be over soon, and I need a hostage."

Izuku decided that no, he would _not_ be quiet, and he would most certainly not roll over and let this happen either. Clawing angrily at his face and body to try and tear it away, Izuku felt not only fear at his imminent suffocation, but a low, slow-burning anger that started in his gut and slowly spread to his chest.

He didn't have time to process the strange feeling as it churned in his stomach, before there was what felt like a concentrated tornado whipping past him and shearing the villain off in bits and pieces and sending Izuku tumbling out of the tunnel and into the bright sunshine of the late afternoon.

Izuku blacked out for a second then, his mind and lungs trying to process the influx of oxygen. There was something gently patting his face, and even as Izuku focused again, he was once again left breathless.

"A-All-Might!" he gasped, scrambling into a seated position, trying to swallow the prevalent urge to vomit now there wasn't a villain clambering around inside of his sinuses.

"Good! You're alright!" All-Might posed readily even as Izuku stammered. "I'm sorry you got caught up in my pursuit of that villain! Now, you must excuse me while I continue on my quest for justice!"

"Wait!" Izuku scrambled forward, hands wrapping around a sturdy leg and then – it was a split second and he was _flying_ with just his white knuckled grip on All-Might's leg to keep him airborne.

All-Might was shouting something back at him, but Izuku couldn't hear it past the rush of blood in his ears, the whip of the wind around them, and only felt his lunch settle back into place when All-Might gently landed on top of a nearby, convenient building.

Izuku caught his breath, trying to control the trembling in his hands as he looked up, ready to ask his role model a question when he was suddenly engulfed in what felt like steam, steam that held the faint tang of copper, like stale blood.

When it had dissipated All-Might was no longer there, replaced with a gangly man with blond hair, loose clothes hanging limply off of his frame.

"Ah, now you've done it," the man groaned, and coughed a gout of blood to the floor with a wet splatter.

"All…All-Might?" Izuku fumbled with the words for a moment, briefly feeling like the world's most elaborate prank was being played on him that second.

The man sighed, long and wistful.

"You're looking at him. Though, in times like this, my name is Toshinori Yagi."

"What – what happened? I don't understand?" Izuku croaked, eyes wide, and the man, Toshinori sighed again. This time, it was if the world was on his shoulders, and the weight had forced it out of him.

"A fight I was not the victor of," he acquiesced. "A few years ago I battled someone and lost, grievously."

"But you're All-Might," Izuku managed, and recoiled in horror as Toshinori lifted the hem of his now baggy shirt, airing out the macabre scar that had mangled his side into dark, puckered skin.

"Most of my stomach and one of my lungs were lost to the fight," Toshinori said, each word sounding as if they were being forced out of him. "Over these years, despite the dozens of surgeries, the first of which saved my life, my time as All-Might is stretched thin. I can no longer use my Quirk as I please, and must be careful. That is what you see before you today."

Speaking so much seemed to have taken its toll, and he coughed then, more blood trickling from his lips to drop to the roof they were stood on, the metallic tang of it strong in Izuku's nose.

"But, if you'll excuse me, I'm still in pursuit of that sludge villain and must catch him before he finds another victim." Toshinori braced himself, ready to call upon the dwindling spark inside of him, and faltered when Izuku threw his hands out suddenly, in alarm.

"Wait! All-Might, Toshinori, sir, please, I have one last question, I promise! Can someone – if someone was born without a Quirk, could they…could they become a hero?"

"Absolutely not," Toshinori rebutted, almost immediately. "With the world as it is, it would be far too dangerous."

"Oh...of – of course," Izuku replied, lacklustre and with a fake sounding laugh. "It would be too dangerous."

Toshinori scrutinized him closely then, before taking in a deep breath and, with more decorum and much more smoothly than the transition downwards, he was up again, All-Might, strong and proud.

"Here," All-Might offered a stout, wide hand. "I will take you back to ground level. Saves you all these steps!"

"Thanks," Izuku replied wearily, and this time could breathe a little easier as All-Might dropped from the edge of the building towards the pavement below, landing in a soft, careful crouch before he set Izuku on the floor.

"I don't think I caught your name, my boy," All-Might said then, as Izuku gathered his bearings and readjusted his bag carefully.

"Oh! Oh, sorry." Izuku bowed hastily. "I'm Midoriya Izuku!" his mouth twisted then, thoughtful and unsure before he hesitantly asked, "And…I know you're busy, but could I, um, possibly get an autograph…" his voice trailed off.

All-Might gave a booming laugh.

"Of course!"

Izuku was left with a slightly crumpled, but still enthusiastically signed notebook. All-Might had written Izuku's full name. It just served to make the tears worse.

* * *

Izuku was trudging down the street, helpfully guided by a pedestrian to his original path, a pedestrian who had seen him dropped off by All-Might, when he was startled out of his sad musings by a shriek of fear and someone stumbling past him in the opposite direction.

From then on out, it's like being underwater. Izuku sees Bakugou. He sees the slime villain that had tried to choke the life from him not half an hour before. He sees the one wrapped around the other.

Sees the heroes standing to the side, shouting for demands, for stipulations, for the healthy release of the hostage. For all they're doing, Izuku feels as though they are doing nothing.

He, however, has to do _something._

Izuku was running forward before he could second guess himself, hands grasping uselessly at his jacket as he hurdled the barrier that had been set up to keep civilians free of the ensuing mess.

" _Deku!"_ Bakugou's voice was an angry, disbelieving roar past the nasally sound of something caught in his throat. "What do you think you're _doing?!"_

"I can't just watch you die!" Izuku wailed back, throwing his bag with all of his might straight into the eye of the disgusting amorphous thing contorting around his once, maybe still, best-friend.

The villain reared back with a gurgled noise of anger but did not relinquish its hold on Bakugou, who was still voraciously trying to tear himself free.

Even as Izuku watched, Bakugou's movements became less frantic as he slowly ran out of oxygen, fingers that he had once used like claws no simply fumbling.

Izuku was frantic enough for the two of them, screaming and tearing at the blob as it tried to suffocate Bakugou.

All-Might, once again, was his saviour, swooping in and saving the day, to cheers and accolades.

Izuku, knelt down next to Bakugou's body, heard All-Might when he whispered in his ear, "Young Midoriya, please wait for me until this issue is resolved."

Izuku simply nodded, and waited with Bakugou's unconscious body.

* * *

"That was a reckless thing you did," Toshinori said when the crowd had dispersed, startling Izuku out of his thoughts from where he had been perched on the curb of the road. At Toshinori's arrival, he sprang to his feet, nervously gripping onto the strap of his bag.

"Nobody was doing anything, and Kacchan, he…when the villain caught me before, it tried to suffocate me. I couldn't…I wasn't just going to watch him _die._ "

Bakugou had been taken home after medical attention and a fuss from both the ambulance team and his overwhelming mother, the woman nearly inconsolable at hearing the trials her son had been.

Bakugou himself had been quiet, unnervingly so, and withdrawn, subdued. He'd glanced over at Izuku when he'd been perched on the side of the road only once, and had made no move to approach or speak to him.

"It was reckless," Toshinori said, gesturing loosely for Izuku to follow as he stepped down the street. "But also brave."

Izuku blushed at the praise, looking down to his toes as he played with the bag strap.

"Thank you."

"Because of today's events, I'd like to apologise," Toshinori continued, and Izuku nearly stumbled to a halt. Toshinori did stop, his blond hair catching the sunlight and glowing almost gold in the rays of the setting sun.

"Apologise?" Izuku asked. "For what? You saved Kacchan in the end, nobody was hurt."

"Physically, no. Earlier on, however, even I could tell your feelings were hurt when I told you that someone without a Quirk could not be a hero, because of the dangers. You were the person in that hypothetical situation you set, weren't you?"

The hurt that had since dulled in Izuku's chest reared its head anew, and he couldn't withhold the flinch.

"I thought so. For what I said, I'm sorry."

"Well, you were telling the truth," Izuku shrugged, trying for blasé and instead looked very clearly distraught. "Being a hero is a dangerous career after all, having the number one hero tell me it's not possible, then I should just…try for something else."

"I was wrong," Toshinori said firmly, and before the surprise had even taken root in Izuku, he continued, "Today you saved your friend's life – not directly, but you gave us enough time to strategize and take out the villain with no further damage. You were a hero, with no Quirk."

Izuku gave a watery smile, opening his mouth. Toshinori held a hand forward, stopping the words in Izuku's throat.

"You have no Quirk. But, you can. You will. And with that, you will become a hero."

"If my Quirk was going to show, it would have by now," Izuku replied glumly. "Not to mention my toe joint."

"Well, you don't need that toe joint. You can just have my Quirk. You can be a hero."

And Toshinori grinned as if he hadn't just tilted Izuku's world on its axis.

* * *

Izuku grunted as he flipped the tyre he was going to push upright. He couldn't tell if it was lighter than it looked, or if he was simply getting used to the brutal regime of beach cleaning Toshinori had given him.

It felt simultaneously hours ago and weeks ago instead of days that Toshinori had told him he could become a hero – that he held a Quirk in his body that was a subtle, perfect mix. Of unprecedented strength, stockpiled over years, and a quiet, underlying ability that allowed it to be passed down, to continue its legacy.

A Quirk that, if Izuku trained himself properly, could be his.

"Keep it up, my boy! At this rate, the beach will be clear with time to spare!" Toshinori called, perched in a lawn chair he'd pinched from the pile of garbage, deeming it clean enough and stable enough to use as he watched.

Izuku swept some sweat from his brow and rolled the tyre across the bumpy sand in a slow jog, concentrating on the way the tyre slipped and slid in the sand as easily as his feet did.

Collapsing onto the ground next to Toshinori, Izuku gratefully accepted the cold bottle of water he was offered, and guzzled near half of it in a single go.

"You're quite the well-bodied young lad, aren't you Izuku?" Toshinori mused, and chuckled as Izuku dumped the rest of his water over his head, shaking his hair like a particularly enthusiastic dog. In the soft sunlight of the day, it was almost as if the water was steaming off of his body.

"Not really," Izuku replied easily. "I didn't really exercise except for, well, when we had to in school."

Toshinori looked down at Izuku, and then doubtfully at the tyre he'd near effortlessly pushed across the beach, like he was on a leisurely stroll.

"That tyre probably weighs just under a hundred kilos, Izuku."

"Oh?" Izuku sat a little upright, staring at the offending item. "It certainly didn't feel like it."

Toshinori squinted suspiciously down at him.

Izuku laughed.

"Maybe I was a bodybuilder in a past life!"

* * *

Izuku stood at the entrance to the grounds, to the stage that would see him entered into Yuuei's hero course, even as other student hopefuls streamed around him.

He still reckoned he could feel that hair Toshinori had made him eat stuck in his throat. His tutor? Friend? Confidant? Hadn't even given him a drink to wash it down with.

A distant explosion and faint, excitable cackling place Bakugou. Robots were already dropping around him, Izuku watching with glee, and awe, as Quirk after Quirk was shown to him.

Then it seemed to click that he'd need to knock some robot noggins himself if he hoped to collect points and make it into his dream school to do his dream job.

But in all of his musing and delight, there seemed to be no robots left.

"Oh. Oh no, this is no good," Izuku mumbled, jogging between zones, past carcasses of metal and wiring still sparking, teenagers high fiving each other and comparing techniques and points.

With a sudden and huge rumble, one of the fake skyscrapers crumbling from the foundation, the Zero-Point robot split free from its concrete prison, taking one thundering step forward. The exam goers scattered, like a disturbed ants nest, away from the large, mostly useless, entirely dangerous robot.

Therefore, Izuku was the only to notice there was a girl trapped in the rubble the appearance of the robot had caused. He remembered her from when they were gathered before, given instructions to follow in order to pass the exam.

In two, big lumbering steps, the robot would be directly where she was, and she would be nothing but paste on the floor. A quiet, rational part of Izuku told him that the proctors would step in before that, that nobody would truly be hurt or, god forbid, die, in order to uphold Yuuei's good name.

A larger part of him was screaming that this was unfair, that it couldn't happen, that she was in danger.

Izuku ran forward, desperation fueling his sprint, his chest burning with exertion as he crashed to his knees in front of them. The robot had one lumbering step left.

Close up the rubble was bigger, seemed more than he could handle.

"Here!" Izuku gasped, grasping at the girl's wrist. "I'll help you!"

The burning intensified.

The sun dimmed and disappeared as shade was thrown over them, their light blocked by that one, lumbering footstep.

"Oh," the girl whispered, voice warbling sadly, fearfully. "We're going to – "

"No!" Izuku replied, standing up and letting her go, fist clenching by his side. "We're not!"

The burning was white hot in his chest, like One For All, his new Quirk, was telling him it was ready.

It was not One For All telling him it was ready. It was something else.

With a ferocious bang, like a bomb had gone off, the entire arena was engulfed in smoke. Through the smoke, something whistled as it shot by, and a piece of the Zero-Point robot's head embedded itself into a nearby building.

In the examiner's officer, several bodies leaned forward, interested.

Nobody could be prepared for what the dissipating smoke showed.

Where there had once been one (1) Giant Robot and two (2) endangered examinees, there was now a very large, very scaly dragon.

Roughly the size of a generous three bedroom, two bathroom house, it had glittering emerald scales, impressive wings and a pair of twisting horns that would rival those of a goat, if that goat was also the size of a house.

In one clawed fist, opposable thumb included, was the unconscious boy of the previously trapped girl. Beneath its back legs were the remains of the previously impressive robot.

The dragon opened its mouth.

It then whined like a dog that had just been told 'no', an 'aroo' sort of noise leaving it plaintively.

In the examiner's office, Toshinori was frozen with a proud grin on his face because this was _not_ what he had expected.

("Yagi, what the fuck, we trusted you to pick a good one," Aizawa hissed.)

* * *

This will not be a serious story I'm sorry. Serious is very much not part of my nature when it comes to Boku No Hero Academia I'm afraid! (This disclaimer does not count parts of the plot where seriousness needs to happen.)

Hope you like it!


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter Two**

Toshinori sprang into action a near second after the shock had worn off, immediately activating One For All and grasping Aizawa by the collar as he leapt through the window of the spectating area as if the glass wasn't really there.

Aizawa simply went limp and let himself flap in the ensuing breeze of being dragged at nearly sixty miles an hour, altogether far too used to All-Might and his eccentricities.

Other proctors and teachers were ushering frantic students from the arena, even as they muttered and gasped and pointed at what was, you know. A mythical beast just chilling.

All-Might landed heavily enough in front of the dragon? Boy? Dragon-boy? That the massive head swung down to face him, a gust of breath rushing out of flaring nostrils and stirring All-Might's clothes.

The dragon opened its mouth and both Aizawa and All-Might braced themselves for what might happen.

"A-All-Might?" the dragon stammered, a young boy's, Izuku's voice, coming out of the maw of a beast. Aizawa nearly hit the floor and wondered if it would be unprofessional and detrimental to his health to laugh in the face of such a dangerous looking creature.

"Why are you so _small?"_ Izuku continued, nearly cross-eyed in order to see the people stood in front of his snout.

"Ah. You see, Midoriya my boy, I am not small. You are simply…large."

Izuku cocked his huge head to the side, a curl of steam escaping one nostril.

All-Might silently pointed to the unconscious girl still loosely grasped in Izuku's clawed paw-hand.

Izuku looked down. He then shrieked.

Aizawa looked to the side and wrapped his arms tightly around his middle as he shook with silent laughter, the shrill, high-pitched noise unfitting of such a large, monstrous creature.

"W-What?" Izuku stammered, but slowly reached forward after confirming that yes, it was his hand, and slowly unfurled his fingers. The girl tumbled out of his palm, caught in the crook of his knuckles.

"Is, is this the Quirk?" he asked All-Might. Aizawa guffawed, ignoring the not so gentle elbow to his ribs.

"No, I'm afraid not. This is…something else. Can you perhaps replicate the feeling that caused this…transformation? I'm afraid this conversation is giving me something of a crick in the neck."

Izuku fumbled, fingers stretching out flat so emergency personnel nervously hovering in the background could swoop in and save the girl.

"Um, I can try?" Izuku swept upright, sitting back on his haunches and closing his eyes as he tried to concentrate. The burning feeling in his chest was back, and he focused on that, trying to see if he could trigger it again.

Instead, he promptly burped, a great, rumbling noise. It would have been funny, if not for the gout of flames that erupted from his mouth immediately afterwards, a bright red fire with a blue centre spiralling into the sky.

"Oh. No. That wasn't what I meant at all," All-Might said sadly, and Izuku slapped his hands to his snout, snapping his jaw shut with a noise like a thunderclap.

"Um. I don't think I know how," Izuku said sadly. "How to get small again. Am I stuck like this?"

"Shouta, stop laughing and help the poor boy," All-Might hissed, jabbing Aizawa again.

Aizawa straightened up and tried to look professional. Blinking fiercely to get the tears out of his eyes, he activated his Quirk.

Absolutely nothing happened.

"What the fuck," Aizawa breathed. "It's not a Quirk. You actually found a bonafide dragon, Yagi. What the fuck."

"I would like to point out he was _not_ a dragon when I found him," All-Might whispered vehemently. "In fact, he didn't show any sign that he was, or was going to _be_ a dragon."

"Am I in trouble?" Izuku asked, his voice a whine. With a gust of wind he lowered down, his chin resting on hands curled up in front of him. He looked like a particularly large, scaly cat, tucked up 'chicken dinner' style. Aizawa had the inexplicable urge to pet him to see if he purred like one too. Damn his love for cats.

"Of course not!" All-Might boomed. "We're just trying to figure out how to get this – " he spread his arms wide to try and encompass Izuku. "Back to this." And then he brought his hands together again, to show a smaller space.

"I'll try again." Izuku decided.

Surreptitiously, and trying not to look too obvious, both All-Might and Aizawa took several large steps to the side, just in case Izuku burped again. Neither of them felt like being toast that morning.

With a snap, crackle and pop sort of noise, one of the wings that was on Izuku's back folded down into nothing. What happened then must have defied about a dozen laws of physics, because all of a sudden, in a series of painful looking flipping and bending and folding movements, where there was once a large dragon, there was now a singed looking, very naked teenager.

One wing was still sticking out of a shoulder blade, not as big as a bus anymore, but still just _there_.

"Um." Izuku said. "It feels like trying to shove too much stuff into a bag and you can't get it to zip up." The wing trembled, and folded in half. It did something questionable then, because despite the fact it folded in half from the tip down, not a second later, it looked like a standard wing again, just, you know. Half the size from before.

"Shouta," All-Might muttered. "Your jacket."

"This jacket is _Versace."_

"Oh my god, you have like twenty of them, give him your fucking jacket," All-Might prodded him mercilessly, his voice a mix of disbelief and disappointment. The most potent mix. Aizawa hated him.

Izuku was staring at his toes with great concentration, the wing still folding away, and so he was startled when the large article of clothing was just dumped over his head.

He very briefly, _very briefly,_ bulged. Like he was a bubble about to pop, except this bubble didn't pop into nothingness and joy, it popped into a dragon.

"My jacket," Aizawa said, in a hushed, worried voice.

"Enough about the jacket," All-Might hissed in return. "If he ruins it, I'll buy you a new one."

"You're buying me a new one anyway," Aizawa snipped back.

"Um," Izuku interrupted the argument warily, jacket pulled tightly around his shaking shoulders. "I'm done. I think." A long, lizard like tongue snuck out from between his lips and snuck back in just as quick, like a snake testing the air.

Aizawa and All-Might stared, but decided if Izuku wasn't going to say anything, they weren't going to either.

"Are you…okay?" All-Might asked, and ignored Aizawa's patronizing look that all but screamed, _'really?! That's what you're going to ask?'_

"I…I think so?" Izuku looked bewildered enough for all of them, grasping at the jacket to keep it closed. "That's never happened before."

"It would have made the news," Aizawa muttered. "If you'd ever done it before."

"Is it going to happen again?" All-Might asked, a little concerned.

"I don't know," Izuku admitted. "I just thought it was, you know," he looked at Aizawa suspiciously.

"He knows," All-Might quickly placated. "But why did you think it was One For All?"

"I just…I felt this determination in my chest. Like I had to do _something_ before that girl was hurt, or crushed and…"

"Can you replicate it? See if you can trigger One For All instead of…dragon."

"I'll try." Izuku watched as Aizawa and All-Might took several large steps back, just in case Izuku suddenly expanded in size and exploded again.

It didn't burn as much this time, and Izuku tried to focus it down. Facing a piece of rubble, he prepared to destroy it, either with One For All, or an impromptu dragon appearance.

The good news was that he destroyed it without turning large and scaly.

The bad news was that it left his arm as collateral damage, broken and mangled. The jacket sleeve was shredded.

Stood several metres away, Aizawa mournfully murmured, "Versace."

* * *

"He's hot," was the first thing Recovery Girl, Chiyo, declared as she pulled back the curtain and stepped back from the bed that Izuku was sat up in.

"Chiyo, he's a teenager," Toshinori gasped, scandalised, even as Izuku looked mournfully at his lap.

"Not like that, you absolute reprobate." Chiyo brandished a thermometer in his face. The tip of it that usually went under someone's tongue was a flat mass, metal that had melted and then cooled into its new shape.

"He's lucky I only need a brief amount of contact, or he would have burned me too. I don't know how he hasn't set the bed on fire."

"I'm sorry," Izuku sighed. "This hasn't happened before."

"He also has a patch of scales, just under his elbow. The arm he broke." Chiyo tapped her own elbow, as if explanation. "The bone under there wasn't broken, despite the rest of his arm turning to mush. What were you _thinking_ , giving him your Quirk so unprepared like that?"

"I don't think he thinks at all," Aizawa offered his callous opinion.

"Shouta," Toshinori replied, wounded, before addressing Chiyo. "I thought he was ready. I didn't need much training."

" _You_ are a mutant," Chiyo waved the thermometer in his face as if wagging her finger to tell him off. "What works for you, won't work for everyone."

"Am I in trouble?" Izuku asked, messing with the frayed edges of the jacket still secure around him. "I mean…"

"No, no," Chiyo sighed, rubbing the bridge of her nose. "Not at all. You can't help your Quirk."

"What Quirk," Aizawa muttered under his breath. "The one that isn't a Quirk, or the mess that Yagi gave him."

"I just, um…what if I…you know. At home."

"You'll have to elaborate dearie," Chiyo busied herself with throwing the thermometer away.

" _Turn into a dragon again,"_ Izuku said in a hushed, worried voice, eyes wide. "I mean, what would my _mum_ say?"

Toshinori gasped, almost delighted, and replied, "Of course! Your mother! She may know something about this. She might be able to do this herself."

"Oh, no, mum has a Quirk. Like, a little telepathic thing." Izuku wiggled his fingers, as if trying to demonstrate. Aizawa braced himself, readying himself for a heart attack if Izuku showed _any_ sign of a 'little telepathic thing'. Nothing in the room moved. Everybody started breathing again.

"Then, your father?" Toshinori probed, taking the seat closest to the bed.

"Dad had a fire-breathing Quirk, he – " a look of dawning horror crossed Izuku's face then. "Oh. Oh, okay then. Okay, um, yeah, he, uh, yeah."

"Izuku," Toshinori prompted, touching Izuku's elbow gently, where the sleeve had torn and left it exposed. There was a shiny, smooth patch of scales where he rested his fingertips, like Chiyo had said there would be. The scales were as warm as a cup of tea, and Toshinori was internally glad that Izuku was cooling down and not at risk of setting off any of the fire alarms.

"Um, he used to joke that his Quirk was because, uh, he couldn't fit everything into his skin," Izuku said weakly. "Like a joke, you know? He couldn't fit it, and so it became fiery breath and…I never questioned what he was fitting in him, like a whole fire in his belly, or, or…but I've never seen him – then again, I don't suppose he'd show anyone if he didn't need to, or shown himself without merit or – "

"Where is he now," Aizawa bluntly interrupted Izuku's muttering.

"Visiting family, on the islands," Izuku's voice was almost bleak.

"There's a _family_ of them. Yagi. Did you hear that? A _family._ "

"How is the fact there is a probably well loved, well-functioning, well-hidden family of _dragons_ my fault, Shouta? Please, enlighten me as to how I am the cause of this. Please. Explain away."

"Those sound like fighting words."

"I," Toshinori began mightily. "Will punch you. Just you watch."

"Enough! The both of you!" Chiyo clapped her hands together to try and rid herself of the urge to slap one or the both of them instead. "For now, there's nothing we can do. A potential student is a dragon. Oh well. Some of our _current_ students have Quirks that make them just as weird and versatile so I'm sure –"

"Name one," Aizawa hissed.

" – _so I'm sure_ we can deal with a potential student who may or may not happen to be…to be a dragon."

"I can try to _not_ be the dragon," Izuku offered in a quiet voice. "I mean, I wasn't one for all my life until now, right? What's a few more years if, if I make it into Yuuei?"

And then he sneezed, and a flicker of scales spread across his cheeks, as if replacing his freckles.

"A few more years," Aizawa said, weakly.

* * *

My humour is questionable at best. Bon appetit.


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter Three**

"So, um, a thing happened during the exam today," Izuku spoke into the silence of dinner-time, pushing his food around aimlessly with his fork.

"Oh, honey," Inko began, sympathetically. "Did you fail? It's okay, there are always other options!"

"It's not that," Izuku hurriedly replied. "At least, I don't think so? I mean, I didn't get any of the robots, not really, so I don't think I've done well but um…" he petered off, the sting of failure throbbing in his chest.

"But?" his mother asked softly, setting down her cutlery and devoting all of her attention to her distressed son.

"I, uh. I turned into a dragon?" Izuku's voice petered off into a higher pitch towards the end, emphasising the sentence as a question rather than a statement.

"Izu-kun," Inko gasped, and Izuku hunched his shoulders for the inevitable barrage of questions, or disbelief.

"I – " Izuku began.

"I'm so _proud_ of you!"

Izuku dropped his fork and tried to determine whether or not his mother had been replaced by aliens, villains, or that she had been informed of this already by Aizawa and Toshinori, and now all three were playing an elaborate prank on him.

"Your father always told me not to tell you, that you'd only be disappointed if you didn't inherit the gene, but I'm so happy for you!"

"You knew?" Izuku asked, scandalised in a way he couldn't explain. "That I might – " he waved his hands and fork around his head in frantic movements, hoping his flailing would translate into 'you knew I'd grow to be nearly fifty foot tall and breathe fire'.

"Well, you dad did say it was a possibility," Inko said sagely. "You're half human too, after all."

"And dad just told you? That he could turn into a dragon? Did he ever _show_ you?"

"Sweetie, you used to sit on his back and he'd give you pony-rides in the garden!"

Izuku felt a weird, sort of dawning horror in his gut. He abruptly tried to drown it with a gulp of juice, afraid he might explode his mother's dining room.

"How – How big did dad get?"

"Oh, not by much," Inko said dismissively. "Like a particularly scaly horse, with horns, and wings. We made sure the fence was high enough for security, so nobody could see into the garden."

"Um," Izuku stared into his half empty glass. "I, I was a little bit bigger than that."

"Hisashi did say his father, your grandfather, could reach the size of a bear," Inko mused. "But of course, the older you get, the bigger the transformation. The earlier the change, the more growth you have. This is second-hand knowledge, we'd have to phone your father to be sure."

Izuku couldn't swallow the hysterical laugh that bubbled out of his throat and set his fork down before he accidentally stabbed something with it, like his hand, or the table.

"Izu-kun?" Inko asked, startled by her son's reaction, hand holding her water aloft from where she'd gone to take a sip.

"Mum," Izuku gasped as he caught his breath, staring at his half-eaten dinner. "I was bigger than the _house."_

There was a clink, a clunk, a crash, and suddenly there were shards of glass and water spreading over the wooden floor of the dining room.

Inko's hand was still halfway to her mouth, the glass a forgotten mess on the floor, water spilt down her front.

* * *

One hurried phone call later, Izuku was being congratulated by his over-exuberant father, his voice loud over the tinny speaker. In the background, someone was screaming, whether in fear or delight Izuku didn't know, and there were a myriad of voices all trying to speak over one another.

Something roared and Izuku was forced to hold the phone away from his face as the speaker crackled.

"I didn't mean to," Izuku said glumly, in contrast to his father's delight. "I just…someone was in danger. I wanted to help them and then boom. Dragon."

" _Oh, you must have been a sweet little thing,"_ Hisashi laughed over the connection. _"No more than a Komodo, like an overgrown lizard."_

Izuku regretted having this conversation twice in less than half an hour.

"Not quite," Izuku sighed, sinking down the wall so he had his knees to his chest. "I, um. You remember the year they chose to air the Yuuei exam to the public? With all the robots?"

" _Yes, yes, I remember. Where are you going with this Izuku?"_

"You know the Zero-Point robot? Um. Imagine that. Except a dragon." A hysterical laugh. "They couldn't get part of it out, it was embedded too deeply into the concrete. I was, I was underneath it when I exploded, I literally, I didn't realise I could – "

" _Izuku,"_ his father's voice was quiet almost stern. The background noises, voices and all, had gone. _"What are you trying to say?"_

"I'm a little bigger than a Komodo," Izuku twiddled the phone wire around his finger. His mother was old fashioned, liked the design, the sturdiness. Izuku wondered if most things in the house were sturdy because of his father. Abruptly, randomly, he realised how easy it had been to roll a tyre across sand, flip a fridge-freezer onto its side.

" _Izuku,"_ Hisashi's voice was firm.

"I entered the Yuuei exam and absolutely obliterated one of those Zero-Point robots, by rapidly replacing where it was with my mass. I was big."

" _Izuku,"_ Hisashi sounded ready to reprimand. _"Just because you found out you could turn into a dragon doesn't mean you should try and pass it as a Quirk to be a hero!"_

"I didn't," Izuku said, miserably, and oh boy, wasn't this going to be an awkward conversation. "I, I got given one. A Quirk. By…By All-Might."

" _I'm sorry, did you say given? By_ All-Might _?"_

"Funny story," and another hysterical laugh wobbled out of Izuku. "Yeah, uh, I attacked a villain that was trying to kill Kacchan. All-Might told me I could be a hero. I didn't…I didn't know about the dragon thing until I _was_ one."

For a very long time there was quiet on the other end of the phone line.

" _Did that person you were trying to save, when you found out. Are they okay?"_

Izuku let his breath leave him in a whoosh.

"She was safe in the end. I was just…I thought she might have been crushed. I couldn't…I just _couldn't._ I thought I was using One-For-All – that, that's the name of the Quirk, dad it's so _cool,_ it's a strength stockpiling Quirk, but it's dangerous, I broke my arm using it and – "

" _Slow down, Izuku,"_ his dad laughed, tone of voice less serious, more familiar again. _"But I think I get what you're talking about. An internal rush, a build up of power."_

"Yeah," Izuku agreed.

" _So. One-For-All, you said. How did you get the Quirk of_ the _Number One hero?"_

Izuku giggled then, resisting the urge to muffle the phone into his shoulder.

"He, uh, he took a hair off his head, held it forward and said 'eat this!'."

" _Izuku. Don't tell your mother I said this, but, sincerely, what the fuck."_

* * *

"Izu-kun!" Inko's voice echoed up the stairwell as she shuffled the letters in her hands. "You've got a letter. It has Yuuei's stamp."

There was a noise upstairs like a mortar impacting, Izuku slamming open his door and likely rebounding off the wall opposite in his enthusiasm to leave his bedroom fast enough. Inko absentmindedly made a mental note to call the plasterer, to fix the hole he'd no doubt made.

Izuku scuttled down the stairs more than one at a time, eyes bright with a mix of excitement and fear. When he made grabby fingers at her, his knuckles were shiny and scaly.

The weeks had been better for him, in terms of relating to the fact that he was a huge scaly lizard on the inside, and therefore controlling it. He'd still taken out the window and his favourite shirt at the same time when Inko had startled him in the kitchen, and he'd gained a wing longer than he was tall.

It gave merit to Hisashi's laughing words when he was younger and they were still dating, that his skin was too small to hide what was underneath.

Izuku had shown her; he'd been the one to express it. Had let her bundle him into the car with a picnic on a blustery day, driving for miles and miles until there was nothing but green grass and blue sky and not a soul in sight.

There were many false starts. Inko still had the photographic evidence on her phone, emailed to her wayward husband, of Izuku with horns and a tail, of scaly skin and wide, double-lidded eyes, but still undoubtedly human in shape.

And then, without a word, a whisper of a thought, Izuku had exploded, a whirlwind of shredded clothes, long, stretching limbs, sharp corners and sharper edges.

Inko had a photo, many, of that. Izuku, larger than life, literally, stretched out in the warm sun like a large cat, a wing lifted to cast shade over his gaping mother, a wide maw in a grin of teeth and a tongue peeking between the gaps, tasting the air. Hisashi got those too. He'd called her in the dead of the night, voice thick with emotion, of pride and wonder.

Since then, Izuku had become more comfortable in his new skin. It was like discovering it had done wonders for him, not limited to a brighter attitude than before, akin to the sun. He was stronger, without All-Might's blessing, skin a little tougher, grip a little tighter, harder. What might have hurt last week didn't hurt this week.

Hisashi had promised it would slow down, but Inko was delighted at watching her son grow in leaps and bounds.

Now, letter clasped in his shaking hands, that confidence had wilted back down into the four year old that had been told he couldn't be a hero because he had no Quirk, and instead so much more.

Izuku tore open the letter with bated breath, peeling the contents out with his finger and thumb. As soon as the page was free of its confines, the hologram sprang into life. Izuku's features flickered with his surprise, glowing eyes and a dusting of scales that replaced his freckles.

" _It is me, All-Might!"_ The hologram declared, even as All-Might struck a pose, thumb up. _"To tell you about your Entrance Exam results! Midoriya Izuku, you defeated no One, Two, or Three-Point robots."_

Izuku felt his shoulders slump, waiting for the words to follow that would detail his future, the one of no heroism, of no helping people the way Yagi wanted to with a Quirk that was now his.

" _However! You went above and beyond, and defeated the Zero-Point robot in order to save a fellow Examinee! This act of heroism, your valiant rescue, has earned you eighty-five points! Congratulations, Midoriya Izuku! We are happy to welcome you to Yuuei, Hero Academy, to our esteemed Hero Course! I hope to see you there!"_

It was a fun call to Hisashi, to tell him that they had moved into a hotel for a few weeks until they could repair and replace the wreckage left of the house when Izuku had popped like a balloon given too much air and where there was once a home there was a dragon, Inko shielded from the debris caused by the expansion by the bulk of Izuku's body.

It made the news, declared as a gas leak, despite gawking neighbours, ramblings of giant lizards dismissed because Izuku knew how to fold himself down like origami like it was breathing now, in no time flat.

Toshinori was awoken from his lie in that same morning by a phonecall, Aizawa hissing, _"How could you do this to me, he's in_ my _class,"_ before hanging up.

* * *

Hey, so some of you have mentioned there's a character in the manga that can turn into a dragon. Uh, yeah, I'm not that far. Lmao. For all intents and purposes, they/he/she won't exist, unless I get far enough in _this_ story, that I reach that point in the manga, and then I'll figure it out.

Please remember this is a humour piece. I'll try and follow canon but there is going to be obvious deviation and twists to make it more suitable for the fact that Izuku can now grow a tail at will if he wants to fuck with people, not to the mention the firebreathing, the bigness, the scaliness. This will more than likely have out of character moments.

For others, if you're interested and haven't already seen from another fic (or chapter, my memory is flaky) I have a blog.

fruitpastillesposts!tumblr!com


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter Four**

It was Izuku's first day at Yuuei, a literal dream come true, and he was already well on his way to a broken nose.

Because, in his excitement, he'd taken a step forward, tumbled, and started to fall.

As the ground rushed up to meet him, Izuku still couldn't keep the grin off of his face but, before the moment of impact – and he wasn't sure if he would have popped a wing if it had happened – a hand slapped into his shoulderblade and before long he was right way up again.

He toned down the smile when a face popped into his peripherals, followed by a body that strode in front of him. Inko had said sometimes his smiles had too many teeth. But, almost immediately, it was widening again, nearly splitting his face in two.

"You're okay!" Izuku exclaimed, and the girl opposite him grinned back. He remembered when he'd held her in his clawed hand, where she had been limp and unconscious.

"Yup," she declared, just as cheery as him. Izuku could see why his too wide smiles might be off putting, if this person opposite him was any indicator. She could smile just as wide.

Unaware of his revelation she continued.

"You saved me right! I'm _so_ glad they let you into Yuuei! I was afraid you wouldn't have enough points because you side-tracked to save me, but when I tried to let them give you some of my points they were all stupidly cryptic and told me not to worry! I'm Uraraka, Uraraka Ochako. It's nice to meet you!"

She jabbed out a hand, still smiling.

Feeling a little steam-rolled by the abrupt introduction, Izuku took her hand, letting her shake it enough for the both of them, suddenly feeling a little overwhelmed and embarrassed.

"I'm Midoriya Izuku," he said shyly. "I'm glad you're okay. They took you away and wouldn't let me know if you were okay at first."

"Just fainted!" Uraraka confirmed, letting Izuku's hand go. "They told me you absolutely wrecked that robot! Wish I'd been awake to see it."

Something in Izuku giggled hysterically.

"Yeah. I just uh. Punched it. Broke my arm though!" he added, pulling memories of the day willy-nilly to add to the lie. "My Quirk is strength enhancement, and my arm wasn't quite ready for it."

"Neither was the robot," Uraraka ribbed, and then grabbed him by the arm, ignoring how flustered he got. Pulling insistently, she started to drag him towards the building, chattering all the while.

Compelled to answer at least one of her questions, Izuku mumbled, "I'm in 1-A too. I earned Rescue Points instead of Hero Points."

"Oh, I didn't know that was an option!" Uraraka gasped, and before Izuku could reply, someone else did.

"Neither did I," someone spoke from behind them and Izuku jumped near out of his skin (inside, he giggled hysterically because _imagine,_ out of his skin _)_ , feeling decidedly ripply and determined not to pop.

Turning slowly, like a child caught with a hand in the cookie jar and _not_ like a teenager about to blow up, Izuku came face to chest with a person. Looking up, it only took a few seconds to recognise the face.

He took a step back. Looking up for so long was only bound to give him a crick in the neck.

"I said some harsh words to you," the person said and bowed stiffly at the waist. Izuku hurriedly took another step back before their heads cracked together.

"Don't worry!" he stammered. "I mutter, I'm aware, I just – just sometimes don't catch myself in time."

"I made a poor judgement of you character," the person was still at an angle and Izuku desperately wished he'd just stand up again. It was making him feel awkward.

"It's okay, really," Izuku muttered, aware that people were starting to stare. "Really! Water under the bridge. I'm Midoriya Izuku."

"I am Iida Tenya," Iida barked out, still bent over in a bow.

"Oh my god," Izuku whispered. Louder, he said, "You can – you can get up now."

Iida shot up, like an unwound spring snapping back into shape. Abruptly, he adjusted his glasses and stuck out a hand.

This Izuku could deal with. Iida's handshake was firmer than Uraraka's but still just as warm. Izuku gave him a smile and Iida even gave one back.

All good. All was good. No one was staring anymore. Iida had moved on to introductions with Uraraka. Izuku's first day was going to plan and he'd interacted normally with two whole people.

See, Izuku was paranoid. He'd spent the previous evening huddled in the hallway with the phone, listening to his father's stern instructions. It was by no means a secret conversation, but he'd felt like a sleuth all the same as he'd listened.

Don't draw attention. Only use 'your' Quirk. Be normal. Stay human. Don't grow scales, or a tail, or horns. Don't give anything away that might lead to your classmates suspecting or knowing you are a dragon.

A hand clapped down on his shoulder out of nowhere.

" _I'm human, really!"_ Izuku shrieked, high pitched, shoulders bunching and hunching protectively. He wasn't a dragon. Not him. No sirree.

Iida gave him a long, searching look, before he sighed and nodded.

"Yes, you are. We're all human, and all make mistakes. Truly, you are a better person than I for forgiving me."

Izuku didn't know where this saving grace had come from, but he just looked at Iida, feeling dumbfounded.

Uraraka looked equally as dumbfounded, eyes squinted suspiciously as she looked first at Izuku then at Iida.

"But perhaps," Iida continued, adjusting his glasses once more. "Perhaps we should make our way to class before we are late on our very first day!"

His glasses flashed, as if catching the sunlight.

Izuku looked up at the sky. It was still overcast, like it had been when he'd left his house that morning. Well. Not one to question weird things considering he _was_ one, Izuku simply decided his best course of action was to agree, following Iida and Uraraka to the building that housed their classroom.

* * *

Iida encountered Bakugou. Bakugou encountered Izuku. Izuku wished the floor would swallow him up.

They were all saved by their teacher, doing his best impression of a caterpillar, entering the classroom.

When Izuku moved to greet him, he was given the most deadpan expression he'd witnessed in his life, a cold sweat running down his spine. The look he was given made it seem as if Aizawa wanted him murdered.

Aizawa just despaired that this was his life now and wondered how he'd make Toshinori suffer in the same vein for inflicting this upon him.

(Izuku liked Uraraka's interpretation of his name. It made his chest swell with pride and nothing more, no matter how Aizawa suspiciously eyed him like he'd turn into the human equivalent of a flamethrower because of one little compliment.)

* * *

"Oh, thank goodness," Izuku breathed as Aizawa finished lining out the requirements for the physical. Uraraka gave him the side-eye, obviously wondering why he'd be happy with such a brutal regime of physical fitness.

"I thought it might be something like the robots again," Izuku admitted, feeling pinned under the look. "I mean, this stuff I can do as me. Without, you know. Obliterating every bone in my body or accidentally launching myself into the atmosphere."

"I suppose that makes sense," Uraraka allowed.

"Besides, it's not that bad," Izuku added, "I've done way more than this."

"You're a _teenager,"_ Uraraka sounded affronted as if all he should have been doing was lazing about and playing games. Izuku flashed a nervous, too sharp smile and quickly darted away to the start of the running line when he was called.

"Being physically fit is my passion!" he hollered over his shoulder and startling the person next to him.

Iida dusted him, and everyone else for that matter, in the hundred metre dash. Izuku was too busy admiring to feel sorry he'd come in third place, second place eked out by someone with a tail, who abruptly introduced himself as Ojiro.

Izuku seriously debated asking him about the balancing issues of a tail and then remembered his father's words. Be human. No dragon or dragon features.

All of the other activities fell into the sort of same category. Izuku wasn't top of the class by any means and by the end of it all he was probably solidly in the middle range when compared to his peers. But, somehow, it didn't feel enough.

There was a buzzing under his skin, a restlessness, where he felt compelled to prove himself. It was a little embarrassing to admit it, but he wanted to show off.

The last test of the afternoon was a ball throw.

Izuku clenched his hand into a fist, felt the warm brush of One-For-All crackle over his knuckles like a faint ache. When he shook his hand back out, his knuckles were green and shiny. Bringing up his other hand, he was quick to rub the scales away with the bad of his thumb, feigning nervousness as Uraraka stepped up next to him.

"I just feel as if I haven't really shown myself," Izuku confessed, rubbing his knuckles again and again until he could feel smooth skin again. "And I kind of really want to show what I'm made of."

A pang resonated within him. He'd been passed over, dismissed for so long because he'd had no Quirk. Now he had one and the chance to use it. He couldn't pass that up.

"I get what you mean," Uraraka sighed, running her hands through her frazzled hair and looking more tired than Izuku, which wasn't that hard. Izuku had stamina for days now. He'd cleaned a whole beach with nothing but determination and grit. A few squats weren't going to throw him.

"Maybe we can both prove our worth now," Izuku murmured in reply, and shouted, "Good luck!" as Uraraka was called forward and handed a baseball, tracking device in place.

Any hopes that Izuku had of coming first in _any_ category was shattered by one tap of Uraraka's Quirk.

The ball went up. And up. And up. And up. It turned into a dot in the distance and never returned.

"I'll…just put that down as 'infinity'," Aizawa muttered, disgruntled at the loss of a piece of equipment. He'd come prepared fully expecting that he'd lose a couple of balls at least considering who he was teaching but still hated the paperwork involved with loss and destruction of school facilities.

Izuku couldn't beat infinity, no matter how hard he threw the ball, even if he put his whole arm and shoulder into it, Quirk or no Quirk.

Uraraka hopped back to his side, fingertips pressed together and face bright and lit up in a smile.

"Thanks for the encouragement," she whispered, touching his wrist shyly. "I'd almost forgotten my Quirk could help I was so nervous, I thought I'd have to throw it with just me but…I'm more than me."

"You are," Izuku agreed, whispering back. When he was called forward, Uraraka's light touch turned into a loose grip on his wrist.

"Do your best," she said seriously, and let him go.

Izuku stepped forward, feeling confident again all of a sudden. Something in him was preening, like a peacock raising its tail and showing it off after being showered with praise.

Uraraka believed in him.

Aizawa did not.

Izuku looked at Aizawa, wounded, when the ball flew forward a few paltry metres and fell to the floor with a sad thump. A loud snort came from Bakugou's direction and Izuku felt his neck flush in embarrassment.

"You broke your arm," Aizawa said quietly, his voice a drawl. "I don't think you should be using your Quirk unless you can prove you won't break your arm just by throwing a ball."

Something angry reared in Izuku, his skin prickling. Slowly, he let a smile cross his face, widening to the point of no return.

"How about," he said, tilting his head and feeling fierce, "how about you give me a chance, as you've given everyone else here a chance."

Aizawa's expression soured, as if he'd swallowed a lemon, but an oppressiveness Izuku had felt fall over him during his attempted throw lessened and then disappeared entirely.

"If you break your arm," Aizawa warned, "I'm kicking you from this class _and_ this school. If you can't take care of yourself, I'd hate to see what you'd accidentally do to your classmates."

The angry thing flailed, like a fish caught on land; no finesse, just twisting and turning, flopping and flipping. Izuku felt indignant, indescribable, that Aizawa would even _suggest_ he'd hurt a classmate, or fail to protect them or…

This too was something his father had warned him about. Izuku was a dragon under thin, fragile skin. The dragon was Izuku, under hard, glittering scales. Even as he walked about human the dragon would lie dormant but still a part of him. There would be new feelings, new instincts, new responses.

A puberty within a puberty, except instead of strange emotions and possible acne, it was scalier, angrier, more instinctive.

Aizawa had hit a nail firmly on the head in Izuku's literal lizard brain and Izuku's lizard brain had responded with 'Fully-Offended'. It was less a matter of pride now. It would be a matter of proof. Izuku could and would show Aizawa what he could do, that he was not a danger.

Holding out his hand Izuku accepted the ball, still smiling.

Aizawa was starting to look unnerved.

 _Good,_ a part of Izuku thought, _let me show him what he has to look forward to._

One-For-All crackled against his skin again, and Izuku was glad his back was to his gathered classmates, unsure if he'd be able to keep the growing patches of scales hidden from them had they faced one another.

Winding up like a baseball pitcher, Izuku grabbed that crackle of power, fed it down his body, filed it into the finest of points, a gathering of power in just his fingertip. A bomb, with a fuse waiting to be lit.

And as his arm reaching the peak of his throw, he let it go.

Uraraka's ball had exited the atmosphere.

Izuku's _altered_ it, clouds parting like the wake following a boat.

And then he turned on his heel to face Aizawa who, instead of being pissed or recalcitrant at being defied, was smiling instead.

It was the scariest thing Izuku had ever faced, and he'd once broken his mother's favourite casserole dish.

* * *

I WROTE THIS IN AN HOUR IF THERE'S A MISTAKE OR MORE I'M NOT SURPRISED.


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter Five**

Aizawa hadn't stopped smiling and Izuku had felt abruptly, awfully, cornered. Like he'd been goaded into it. Nervously wringing his hands together and scratching at the ripple of scales persistently sticking to the base of his index finger.

And the hilarious trussed up Bakugou.

The moment he'd turned and seen the terrifying visage that was visible teeth in Aizawa's face, Bakugou had launched forward with the all the fury and wrath of a god, pouncing like a cat about to tear into an unsuspecting mouse.

Aizawa hadn't even stopped smiling when he'd wrapped Bakugou up like a particularly violent Christmas present.

"The point of these exercises was to show me your potential, to show me that your power over your quirks is not complete, not yet, but to prove to me that each and every one of you have the dedication to _improve._ Midoriya, you passed that test." Aizawa looked over the rest of them. Not one of them shuddered so Izuku guessed he'd turned off the smile. "You all passed, for showing integrity and control. Congratulations."

"What was that about being expelled?" Uraraka muttered next to Izuku when he shuffled over to them, no longer under the creepy watchful eye of Aizawa.

"Fear tactics?" Izuku mused. "But congratulations! You found something you were the best in."

"And what's up with him." Uraraka looked down at Bakugou who was squirming in his restraints and screaming in what might have been Japanese but might have also been a new language entirely.

"Oh." Izuku didn't know how to feel about that. "Um. My quirk was…a late bloomer. And I guess Kacchan doesn't…uh…like that I have one now?" A few words filtered through. "Or, apparently, I was hiding it all this time."

If Bakugou could cause explosions with pure vitriol alone Izuku was sure he'd be ash by now just by virtue of the look he was being given. Izuku felt numb, honestly. The threat of expulsion had hung over everyone. Now he just felt loose and relieved, like the adrenaline rush had left him.

"Are _you_ okay?" Uraraka pestered. "You said you broke some bones in the exam, and the ball went pretty far!"

Izuku proudly displayed his hands and seemed to realise only then that the tip of his index finger was at a nearly ninety-degree angle from the knuckle, bending backwards.

"Oh."

"Oh."

The both of them stared at it.

From the side, Iida calmly remarked, "Perhaps you should get that seen to."

Izuku and Uraraka shrieked in unison. Neither of them had heard him come up from behind them.

* * *

"It's not your arm," Recovery Girl agreed, and Izuku squirmed under her stare, wishing that she hadn't banished Uraraka and Iida back to class because now he was under the brunt of her attention. "But it's still broken."

"I'm sorry," Izuku mumbled, feeling properly chastised by less than ten words. He thought he'd never find someone who could convey disappointment without outright sounding disappointed like his mother but here he was.

"Considering everything else though," Recovery Girl continued. "I'd expected the damage to be worse."

"Aizawa-sensei said I was a danger if I couldn't control it. A danger to the _others."_ Izuku was still very offended by that notion.

Chiyo hummed and snapped his finger back into place. The high-pitched yelp reverberated across the walls and she watched closely as scales rippled across the injury before sinking back underneath skin.

"Sorry."

Izuku said nothing of the fact she sounded the furthest thing from apologetic.

"How's your calorie intake," she said suddenly, pressing a dry lipped kiss to the top of his head and making his skin tingle.

"Um?"

"How much do you eat," Chiyo clarified as she scribbled something down, no doubt marking the reason for his visit, and whether or not his parents needed to be involved.

"I – " and Izuku stopped and thought about that. "A…lot?"

"Mmhmm," Chiyo scratched something else out onto a piece of paper before slamming it away into a filing cabinet. "Now, normally I don't advocate for missing lessons, but this is your first day and Present Mic doesn't do much more than talk about himself or the radio show for the first lesson you have with him, so I've some questions to ask."

"Questions?" Izuku fiddled with his fingers nervously, thumb rubbing into his recently realigned fingertip.

"About your condition," Chiyo clarified. "If I'm going to be your primary healthcare official, I need to know everything I can." She paused. "Perhaps condition is too harsh of a word. Heritage?"

Izuku sat upright.

"Oh, that! If you mean about the puberty and stuff, my dad has already gone through it with me."

"'Puberty and stuff'," Chiyo repeated, tonelessly. "That there, will be question number one."

Izuku squirmed, wondering if he should have just kept his mouth shut. The possibility of making a break for it crossed him and he eyed the door contemplatively.

"My dad gave me some pointers," Izuku said slowly. "Since I'm you know. Half human too. He had both of his puberties at the same age, the normal 'hit a certain age' one and the dragon one. My dragon one is a little…late. Considering the new development."

"Dragon puberty," Chiyo said flatly. Izuku winced. When it was spoken out loud like that, it sounded stupid and ridiculous.

"Yeah…"

"Please," Chiyo took a seat, waving her hand. "Don't spare the details."

"Well," Izuku licked his lips, the nervousness refusing to leave and honestly, if it didn't, he'd be escaping before it bettered him. "Dad gave me some pointers but there hasn't been a dragon my size for a while."

"Is there a possibility One-For-All enhanced it?" Chiyo asked.

Izuku froze and wondered why on earth he'd never contemplated that himself. He opened his mouth. Closed it. Chewed his lip and felt his fingers twitch in the urge to make notes. He gave in, diving down for his bag to drag out a notebook.

"I – I'm going to write down some questions to ask my dad – my questions, and the ones I can't answer for you," he said at the lift of an eyebrow. What was it with this school and the amount of people that were as terrifying as his mother.

Lowering his eyes, he scribbled the first few questions.

 _Do full-blooded dragons have quirks? Ask extended family/dad._

 _If yes, any cases of dragons w/ quirks being bigger/enhanced/different?_

Izuku stared at his messy handwriting and wondered when these had become important questions to his life.

"It's like I'm writing a fantasy novel," he whispered to himself.

"Back onto other topics," Chiyo nudged. "Puberty?"

"Oh! Oh, yeah." Izuku set the book to the side and chewed his pen. "Dad said that I'm going to get a little bit tougher, maybe a bit stronger, because not all of it is always contained."

"'Belly full of fire'," Chiyo quoted, from the first time Izuku had been in the ward with her. "But the enhancement would be a reason for why you've been needing to eat more. You're definitely bulkier, considering the short amount of time between visits."

"I haven't had any signs of breathing fire," Izuku promised. "If that happened along with everything else, I think Kacchan would turn apoplectic. Or have an aneurysm. But uh, apart from that, the big thing dad said to look out for were the instinctive things. A dragon doesn't have any reason to think like a human. In fact, it's only a recent adaptation over the past couple of years that dragon clans have developed the ability to hold a human form due to modernisation of the –"

"On topic please."

Izuku was mortified. At least Chiyo sounded amused.

"The dragon is a big lizard. The big lizard likes to do things his way. Lizard brain. They've got 'human-like' intelligence but obviously it's adapted to their own needs. It's just…a lizard brain."

More amusement. Izuku felt his cheeks burn and looked down.

"So what does this mean for you?"

The indignation from earlier, from Aizawa, suddenly flared.

"Aizawa-sensei said I could have been a danger and…I didn't like that." Izuku chewed over the words in his head, cocking his head in an uncanny manner. "I don't know exactly why, but the implication that I couldn't look after my classmates just rubbed the wrong way."

"Were you at risk of losing form then?"

"Oh, no, not at all. I just had to prove myself in the right in front of a figure of authority." Izuku straightened his neck, chewing his pen again.

"And if your classmates were put under direct threat?"

Just the idea of that had Izuku rearing back, indignant all over again. Something under his breastbone rustled uncomfortably and he brought the pen out of his mouth, rueful that his teeth had cracked the plastic but glad he hadn't spilled the ink within.

"Lizard brain," Chiyo murmured. "That thought makes you very uncomfortable doesn't it?"

"I don't even know half of their names yet," Izuku said. "But if anything happened to them, I don't know what I'd do. They're…" his mouth twisted. "We're all here for a reason and we're all so earnest and I don't want that ruined."

"All-Might is setting up a training exercise where you'll be pitted against one another in teams. I shouldn't be telling you this, but if your reluctance to see your teammates hurt puts you at a disadvantage because you refuse to fight, I can write a note excusing you."

"Oh, no, it's only if they're under an outside threat, I'm sure," Izuku reassured, and then immediately realised how unreassuring that actually sounded. "Not that I'd actually hurt them for real, but for the sake of an…an exercise, I'm sure it'll be fine!"

Chiyo looked suspicious but Izuku guessed he really did deserve that.

"If I have to throw a punch, I'll throw a punch," Izuku sounded his argument out carefully. "Because I know a bruise you can stand up from. It's more…wholescale. If someone's playfighting and gets a bloodied nose it's not bad. But if someone straight up brings a knife to a fistfight and threatens to stab someone, that's not on."

"This will be more like bringing a quirk to a quirk fight."

"Exactly! Everyone's on equal grounds. Person A is just as likely to get as hurt as Person B but not in a life-threatening manner."

"And if it happened to change to a life-threatening manner?"

Izuku's easy going smile froze on his face. Chiyo sighed.

"Get to class. Here. This will let you get through the halls and explain why you were late to class." She held out a slip of paper which Izuku gratefully snatched, if only so he could escape as fast as possible from what was one of the most awkward conversations of his life, bar that one time his mother had asked if he had a crush on All-Might.

* * *

"Hey, are you…okay?" Uraraka asked at lunch, even as Izuku continued pointing out what he'd like added to his lunch tray, already piled high. Lunch Rush seemed almost jubilant as he added more and more food. Izuku wondered if he'd been appraised of his unique situation of needing to eat all the food ever.

"Just hungry," Izuku sighed. "I think it might be from Recovery Girl."

Uraraka's unease turned into understanding. "Oh! Of course. She takes energy when she heals huh?" she sounded sympathetic. "I slept through my healing after the exam so I guess I rested enough after it all to not feel it."

Izuku took his teetering tray over to the table where Iida was already sat. He wasn't sure if they were already friends, but at the end of class both of them had waited for him and it gave him some warm fuzzy feeling in his stomach.

He hoped that was what was causing the fuzzy feeling. If he belched fire now he'd dig his own grave and bury himself.

"Well balanced," Iida appraised his meal as Izuku set his tray down. "But a lot."

"Yup." Izuku agreed and refused to elaborate, more concerned with separating his food into very careful neat piles by food type.

"We have our first class with All-Might after lunch," Uraraka admitted nervously. "I almost forgot to tell you, but he came in at the beginning of the lesson with Present Mic. You missed it being…Recovery Girled and all."

There went the pyramid of rice, tumbling down.

 _I shouldn't be telling you this…_ echoed in his head. Despite his bravado in the infirmary, Izuku wasn't actually sure of his ability to hold face in front of his other classmate when it came to being set against one another. At least not without more preparation than say, the forty odd minutes he had left of lunch.

Izuku shoved a piece of chicken into his mouth and chewed it viciously, unaware of the concerned look on Uraraka's face due both his reaction and non-reaction to the news.

God forbid if he was on the opposite team to Bakugou when it all happened.

His luck wasn't _that_ bad after all.

The sneeze that came after that thought wasn't in anyway ominous. Not at all.

* * *

Some of you have been mentioning that I've been missing key facts, pieces, etc.

 _ **This is not canon.**_

If you can't handle the slight misstep from detail #6072 from the manga I haven't read in it's entirety, you don't have to continue reading. Everything is at risk of being tweaked because of the big issue that Izuku can now eat every single one of his problems instead of dealing with them as he did in canon.

This is also humour. Crack. Whatever you want to call it. Take it with a grain of salt. If you're looking for something perfect this isn't it.

Please stop sending messages or reviews saying 'this is wrong' or 'this is wrong'. I'm either unaware, or completely aware and don't care.

Sorry for ranting, but I'm just getting annoyed. This is **fanfiction.**

Again, sorry. Thank you to everybody else for the wonderful reviews!

As for the Ryuko issue – some people say estranged family member, others are just 'coincidental quirk' since Izuku's circumstances are different from hers.

When I say Izuku can be a big dragon, he can be a big dragon, a la Game of Thrones style.

Anyway, until she needs to be introduced, that can be a near or far future problem – if she is introduced, it could be 'we need to ask you questions on this and that' and she can be all 'I have a quirk, this is out of my realm of expertise but ask away'.

Let me know what you think.

Once more, sorry for the rant. I just wanted to write this story for fun. I feel I'm getting nitpicked.


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